The “lack of parental involvement” is the biggest issue affecting black students’ quality of education.

That is one of major findings in a new national survey of African Americans on factors in their quality of life. The survey, sponsored by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF) and Ebony magazine, polled 1,005 African Americans on their mood and on issues related to income, housing, health care, relationships, race and education.

Responses to education-related questions made up a large part of the summary of survey findings. When asked to identify the biggest issues in education, about a fifth of respondents said lack of parental involvement, making it the most frequently cited concern. Other concerns included “overcrowded classrooms” (17 percent), “funding differences among school districts” (17 percent), “quality of teachers” (16 percent), and “students with behavioral issues or special needs” (10 percent).

Of those respondents with school-age children or grandchildren, only 37 percent said the nation was “making progress” in efforts to provide “a quality education.” About a third said the country is “losing ground” in education and 28 percent said that there has been no appreciable change in educational quality.

Conducted in February, the survey results were released after the launch of two new Obama Administration initiatives on behalf of young people of color. In January, Pres. Obama appointed leaders in education, philanthropy and law to serve on a commission for the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans. The president is also seeking support from foundations and businesses for “My Brother’s Keeper,” a campaign he announced on February 27 to improve the education and life prospects of young Latino and African-American males.

WKKF is one of 10 major foundations that have agreed to work with the White House to support the “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative. However, education has been a priority for WKKF throughout its 83-year history, said Carla Thompson, vice-president of program strategy at the foundation.

Although it was still winter in much of the country, 20,000 Black women and girls took to the streets, the parks and their neighborhoods to walk as a part of GirlTrek, a national movement that inspires good health through walking.

GirlTrekkers sign a pledge to walk five days a week, but on the second weekend in March the festivities were linked to the March 10th birthday of freedom fighter and former slave, Harriet Tubman. The participants embrace a lofty goal of logging in 100 minutes of walking. But the founders of GirlTrek also see a deeper mission: helping Black girls and women reclaim their power, lives and neighborhoods.

“Harriet Tubman weekend was important, but the commitment comes day after day, week after week. We can change lives,” says Vanessa Garrison, a co-founder of the organization. “We like to say if Harriet Tubman can walk thousands of slaves to freedom, we can walk to health and healing. We know that this walking movement has caught on because the healing has been inspirational and contagious.”

Based in Washington, DC, the two-year-old organization was founded by Garrison and Tanya Morgan Dixon. In fact, GirlTrek started with a routine telephone call. The two women discussed the health challenges facing their families and communities. The conversation ranged from the lack of healthy food options in poor neighborhoods to the influence of hip hop videos on the psyche of teenage girls.

Then, the conversation took an unusual turn. “What would Harriet Tubman do?” they asked. The women considered starting a t-shirt company; but after a long and colorful conversation, they launched GirlTrek. They wanted to dedicate their lives to addressing the root causes of inactivity in their communities.

Nationwide, African American girls continue to be disproportionately over-represented among girls in confinement and court-ordered residential placements. They are also significantly over-represented among girls who experience exclusionary discipline, such as out-of-school suspensions, expulsions, and other punishment. Studies have shown that Black female disengagement from school partially results from racial injustices as well as their status as girls, forming disciplinary patterns that reflect horrendously misinformed and stereotypical perceptions.

While academic underperformance and zero tolerance policies are certainly critical components of pathways to confinement, a closer examination reveals that Black girls may also be criminalized for qualities long associated with their survival. For example, being “loud” or “defiant” are infractions potentially leading to subjective reprimanding or exclusionary discipline. But historically, these characteristics can exemplify their responses to the effects of racism, sexism, and classism.

More than 42,000 youth were educated in “juvenile court schools” located in California correctional and detention facilities in 2012, according to the California Department of Education, and a disproportionate number of them were Black girls. In the state’s 10 largest districts by enrollment, Black females experience school suspension at rates that far surpass their female counterparts of other racial and ethnic groups. Little has been shared about these girls’ educational histories and experiences inside the state’s juvenile correctional facilities or out in the community.

“Who's the real ambassador?Certain facts we can't ignoreIn my humble way I'm the USAThough I represent the governmentThe government don't represent some policies I'm for.”

Some six decades ago jazz great Dave Brubeck collaborated with the iconic Louis Armstrong on a musical called The Real Ambassadors. The satire skewered the mid-century government practice that sent black jazz musicians as emissaries to other nations amid rampant racial discrimination in the United States. Though it starred Armstrong himself, The Real Ambassadors, performed only twice, has been largely overlooked and critics agree it was probably too far ahead of its time.

But in a crowded, high-ceilinged room in Hartford, Connecticut’s public library, recently, the racially diverse group of teenagers who sang the musical’s title song finally found its perfect audience.

“These young people are incredible,” said an exultant Elizabeth Horton Sheff, the lead plaintiff in a long-running legal effort to reduce school segregation in one of the nation’s most unequal states. Horton Sheff, along with fellow members of a grassroots organization called The Sheff Movement, had organized the evening’s “Celebration of Progress” to bring attention to the success of the schools and programs created here in response to the 1996 court ruling that required the state to remedy school segregation throughout the region.

The student performers offered a stunning example of that success. The singing group, calling themselves The Real Ambassadors, attend the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts. GHAA is one of about three dozen magnet schools that attract a diverse student body by enrolling students from Hartford and the more than two dozen cities and towns that surround it.

America's Wire Staff

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The news media in the United States have been a guardian of the public’s interest. Our nation’s history is filled with episodes during which enterprising reporting, often by the bravest of journalists, has altered the course of public policy for America, and at times, changed our society.